Tag: Doing Good

I finished a donation top and back over the weekend. I thought I had posted something about this, but I couldn’t find the post. I think I must have only posted on Twitter and Instagram about it.

I wanted to use up the Flower Sugar fabrics from Lecien that I used for the Flower Sugar Hexagon (Attack of the Hexies) quilt. I thought a donation quilt would be a good opportunity.

I really want to make donation quilts that can be used for boys, but I also, as I said, wanted to use up this fabric. I don’t think I will use this fabric again, except for some of the blues, perhaps, which I really like. Also, the fabric isn’t really great in terms of quality. Some parts of the fabrics were sun damaged waiting to be used despite the fact that they were covered.

The other fabric I don’t think I will use again was some of the greys from a couple of recent-ish Bonnie and Camille collections. They turned out to be too taupe-y for my projects, so off they go to donation quilts.

I will making the binding and then bring this to the meeting to be quilted. I will see if I have enough batting parts to make a Franken-batting as well.

The BAMQG Hawaiian quilts are still in process. Several have been delivered to the family and they were beyond thrilled. The rest are due by the end of August.

A few weeks ago Kelly and I met for lunch. She gave me one that needed to be bound. In the thick of my injury I couldn’t do it right away and it languished. Angela needed to send me the binding, so I didn’t worry. She did and it was time to get to work.

Last weekend was the weekend of little projects: strip for the Food Quilt #2 back strip, journal cover, Stepping Stones blocks, a lanyard, etc. I added the Hawaiian Quilt binding to the list.

Emboldened by last effort at machine binding, I did a machine binding again as well. Also, with my hand in a brace, hand stitching takes abut 15x as long. Angela and Kelly were fine with the machine binding so I was off.

I did a much simpler machine binding this time. I just used a straight stitch on the back rather than a decorative stitch. The stitching shows on the binding, but isn’t obvious on the front, which is great.

The quilt came to me untrimmed, so I put the binding on and then trimmed. I used my regular Aurifil #2600 piecing thread to sew the binding on the front. It did not blend, but would be covered once the binding was flipped so I didn’t worry.

It occurs to me now that I could have trimmed, put the binding on the back and then flipped the binding to the front. I might try that next time just to see how it looks.

These are very bright and cheerful quilts. I am really pleased to be able to help the guild work on them.

I went to the BAMQG Sew Day last Saturday. We had a great time making Hawaiian themed quilts. We made 10 tops and 5 backs. Kelly was on back detail, so she did most of them while others of us did the tops.

These quilts are for a family who lost their beloved mother/grandmother recently. The fabrics are from her stash and some from curtains and her mumus. All are Hawaiian prints.

Gerre and I worked together. Gerre was already sewing away when I got there. I stepped in and began ironing and pinning and we ended up making the top (left).

Angela arranged the whole project and picked the pattern. I was grateful that it was pretty easy. She is great that way and figured out fast that if we wanted to get these done this century they should be easy. Also, as Frances says, the Muggles don’t know.

I don’t think this is a terrible pattern at all and I don’t mean to imply that it is. Simplicity is wonderful. The black/dark grey really sets off the bright Hawaiian fabric. I think that people who are unfamiliar with the process can appreciate simpler patterns much better. Not that they aren’t capable, but if you don’t sew, it is hard to appreciate the work that goes into something complicated.

Gerre and I did have to contemplate our piece. We wanted some variety in the fabric despite all the orange we had to work with. The picture above shows the piece laid out on our design floor right before we were were going to sew the sashing.

The backs were pieced with big pieces and they came out fun, because of the motifs on the large Hawaiian prints.

Once the backs were made, Angela distributed batting and Gerre and I moved on to Postage Stamp blocks. We made 16 and I will piece them into another donation top.

This back was made by Peggy and I like the combination of the diamond pattern and the large leaves.

Some people will take the quilts home to finish then bring them back for others to quilt.

Gerre is going to quilt ours while I bind the Pink T quilt, then she will give me the Hawaiian quilt and I will bind that one. She has a goal of quilting a certain number of charity quilts this year and I intend to help her! We work very well together and it is great to have a sewing buddy at Sew Day.

We also had our own personal girl Scout present. She came to keep us supplied with cookies. I think she also took an interest in our sewing. We have to tempt the young ones and Amanda is doing a good job on that account.